


Unburnt

by OnceUponASunsetDream



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Kid Fic, young!Jon, young!Robb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 09:18:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11158890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnceUponASunsetDream/pseuds/OnceUponASunsetDream
Summary: Ned Stark never expected to have to tell Jon the truth about his parentage. Not really. It was a secret he was entirely prepared to carry to his grave. But when Jon has an accident that should leave him horribly burnt Ned has to reveal some secrets he never wanted to voice.





	Unburnt

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! So it's been a while since my last story and while I have been writing it's been kind of difficult lately. I've really not been in a great place for the last few months so I just wanted to let people know - if they have been following my stories - that I do read all the comments that people send me and I'm incredibly grateful for them all and I feel terrible for not replying. I'm working on the whole thing where you get a comment and freak out over it for a few days and then freak out some more because you've now left it too long. But anyway never written anything for this fandom before and I haven't gotten around to reading the books just yet but I have seen the show four times and read a hellava lot of fics so I think I know enough for this little oneshot.

Jon trailed after Robb in a daze. His brother's hand locked around his wrist forced him to stagger in the elder's wake. He vaguely registered that they were headed for Father's solar but his eyes were still glued to his own hands. They were thin hands with long, narrow fingers. They had roughened over the years, formed callouses and gained strength as he trained with sword and bow. They weren't weak hands. But they were pale hands. Pale and unblemished, the flesh seemed to almost sear his eyes with their intense bareness. 

Robb was speaking to him but Jon couldn't register the words. Robb's voice seemed to get faster, or perhaps higher pitched. Jon wasn't really sure of anything until he heard to door to their father's solar slam against the stone wall. 

Father was seated at his desk, his wife in a chair by the fire. They both looked up, alarm on their faces at their explosive entrance. Once they registered who had entered their faces changed. Ned's face sagged into relief, then anger and finally settled on concern. Catelyn's face went from shocked, to annoyed and fell into the well-worn expression of distaste that Jon knew so well. 

"Boys," Father sighed. "How many times must I tell you, don't-"

"Father!" Robb interrupted. Perhaps it was the audacity that Robb was interrupting their Lord Father. Perhaps it was his breathless voice or the wild look in his eyes. Or perhaps it was the way that Jon still hadn't been able to tear his gaze away from his hands. He had caught a glimpse of himself briefly in a window as Robb tore through Winterfell. Jon knew he looked pale, paler than usual and his eyes were glossy and bright, as though with fever. His curls, always wild, were now a riot of humidity.

Whatever it was, Catelyn Stark closed her mouth and didn't speak a word as her husband rounded his desk and crouched in front of his two sons. Neither of them were short boys, at fourteen Jon stood only a little shorter than Robb but both of them had to look down at their father as he knelt down before them. 

"What happened, boys?" Jon had never heard Father speak like that before. It was almost enough to pull him from his stupor. Ned sounded serious and commanding but Jon could still hear the worry in his voice. "Jon?"

Jon opened his mouth but words wouldn't come out. He felt the warmth of two of Father's fingers beneath his chin. They were far rougher than his own. These hands had seen wars, had fought and bled amid the dirt and mud but they had also soothed his pains, cradled him as an infant and they were gentle now as they raised his head so that their eyes met. Whatever Father seemed to see in them made him frown and flash his eyes from Jon to Robb and back again. 

"Robb," Father said in that same voice. Robb flinched slightly but didn't back down. "Tell me."

Robb took a deep breath and Jon's eyes drifted back down to his hands. "We were in the forge, we were watching Mikken make a new sword. We…" Robb trailed off glancing over to Jon and then at his father. His face took on a distinctly guilty edge. "We were fooling around and I didn't mean to, Father, I promise but Jon fell and his hands went into the fire!"

Large warm hands were suddenly covering Jon's, examining his palms and unblemished pale skin. 

"It didn't hurt," Jon said hardly registering his own voice. "It was warm and it didn't feel bad."

Father's face paled dramatically until he looked almost grey. Lady Stark stood from her chair but didn't approach. There was something almost akin to concern on her face. "Ned?" Lady Stark asked. To her credit, her voice was only a little cold. "How is this possible?"

Jon made no move to pull away from his father's grip. Ned never failed to show his children love and affection but it never came quite so freely to Jon. He relished every moment he received. Ned's hands were warm but after the fire even they felt cold to Jon. "Is there something wrong with me?"

Father's mouth opened but no sound came out. His jaw worked as it tried to form words and Jon slowly slid his hands from Father's grasp. Father stared at him, their grey eyes met and Jon couldn't help but recognise the despair in his Father's face. The anguish, the grief. He looked back down at his hands and then over to the hearth. He knew somehow, that even if he plunged his hands into the heart of the fire they wouldn't burn. His fingers had been in the flames for a mere second before Robb pulled him back and together they had stared at his unburned appendages. Fire didn't bite him as he had always been warned it would. He and Robb had been told countless times to take care around open flames, to be wary of their touch. They had seen the thick burn scars running up the arms of the smiths and they had been simple accidents on professionals. Robb and Jon had always heeded those warnings. 

Now though, if Jon were to take just a few steps across the room, past Lady Stark and her uncertain face and knelt before the flames, he knew they couldn't harm him. "Am I cursed?" He whispered to his hands. "Do the old gods hate me for what I am?"

Robb scoffed. "Why would being unharmed by flame be a curse?"

Jon had no answer for that. Father sighed heavily and beckoned Jon back to him. Jon went warily. He met Lady Stark's eyes over her husband's shoulder and they instantly went cold. Jon looked away quickly. "Jon," Father sighed again. He took Jon's face in his hands and for a moment Jon thought he might cry. Father gently brushed a few of Jon's wild curls out from his eyes and said softly, "You have much of your mother in you."

The paper in Lady Stark's hand crumpled in her fist and Robb stared, wild eyed, between his parents. From a very young age, Jon had known that he was different, that Lady Stark wasn't his mother and that she hated him for it. Robb hadn't been quite so quick to pick up on that but once he had the subject of Jon's mother had been viciously taboo. Father had refused to tell anyone anything about the woman, not even Jon. He didn't know her name, the colour of her hair, if she was alive or dead. Jon didn't know if his mother gave him up willingly or if she had cried when his father took him. Did she love him? Jon had no idea. 

He hardly dared to breathe as he watched his father's face. The man seemed to reach some kind of conclusion to the battle waging on his face and his gaze turned back to his eldest son. "Robb," he said. "Close the door."

The door closed with a dull thud. Father stood up as his Lady wife stalked past. "Cat," He said tiredly, "do not leave."

Lady Stark whirled around and fixed both Father and Jon with such a poisonous glare that Jon flinched back into Father's chest. "Why not, my Lord?" she snapped. "I have no desire to stay and hear about that…woman." Jon could hear that Lady Stark dearly wanted to say something else but she held her tongue. 

Father scrubbed a hand over his face. Jon almost thought that it was shaking but that couldn't be true. "Cat…" Father trailed off and blew out a breath in a loud huff. "There are things I haven't told you. Things I have sincerely wanted to tell you but I-" he looked back down to Jon, ran a hand through his curls. "These are dangerous secrets. Treason."

"Treason?" Jon blurted out, feeling a little hysterical. "How can who my mother is be treason?" For once it looked like Lady Stark agreed with him but she swept back to her chair instead of speaking and sat down observing them all as though deciding who she would have executed first. 

Father covered his eyes with his hand and beckoned Jon and Robb to sit down in the chairs before the desk. They did as they were bid and Father observed them from where he leaned back against the heavy oak desk. "You are both good boys." Jon and Robb glanced at each other and then back to their father. "I hope that this doesn't change you." Father sat back and frowned thoughtfully. "I know you both know how you came to live with us, Jon."

"You brought me back with you," Jon whispered, feeling Lady Stark's gaze burning into the side of his head. "When you came back from the war."

Father nodded. "Yes. From Dorne." He looked down at his hands as though they could tell the story for him. "After the battle of the Trident, I took a band of loyal Northmen to find Lyanna. We tracked her to Dorne and we found her in the Tower of Joy."

"Aunt Lyanna was dead when you found her, Father, wasn't she?" Robb's voice was small but certain. "You brought her home."

Father nodded and he looked so very sad. "Yes I did, Robb. I brought her home to Winterfell and laid her to rest beside our brother and father. When I found her, however, she wasn't dead. Not yet."

Lady Stark shifted in her chair and frowned at her husband. "You told the king she was dead when you found her."

Father nodded slowly. "I did."

Robb and Jon gaped at him and he smiled a little at their faces. "When I was fighting the Kingsguard left to protect Lyanna I could hear her screaming from the tower. I thought she must have been wounded, assassins or the like but when I found her room she was lying in a bed and she was covered in blood." Father looked away, the pain of the memory evident on his face. Lady Stark reached out as though to comfort him but pulled her hand back before she touched him. 

"I rushed to Lyanna's side," Father continued, eyes distant with memory, "and I took her hand. Her eyes were fevered but she smiled at me and handed me the babe at her breast. She made me promise. Made me swear."

"Swear what?" Lady Stark's voice was still cold but she sounded just as curious as Jon and Robb. "That child…?"

"Lyanna lost too much blood and there was only a wet-nurse to assist her. She nursed the babe as long as she was able before handing him to me." Father looked up at Jon who found he didn't want to hear what else Father had to say. "You were very small, Jon. I'd never held a baby before, not since Benjen. You didn't cry at being separated from Lyanna, you just frowned at me. You were always a solemn child." He reached out, cradling Jon's face. Father's thumb stroked under Jon's eye. "You have her eyes and her look, Jon. You favour your mother greatly. She's the reason people are so certain of the wolf in your blood."

Robb was staring at Jon as though he'd never seen him before. "Jon's not my brother?" He asked, shocked. 

Father shook his head. "He's your cousin, son, but I've tried to raise you like brothers. Jon still has Stark blood, Robb and I like to think that Lyanna and I would have made sure you were always as close as brothers. I hope you remain so close."

Jon felt numb. Aunt Lyanna was his mother then. All Northerners knew about Lyanna Stark. A great and wild beauty who caught the eye of the Dragon Prince. The wedded Dragon Prince. He took her from her home, from her brothers, from her father. He raped her and imprisoned her and, eventually, killed her. Her bones were brought home to Winterfell and with that story came a warning of Dragons and Southerners. 

Jon couldn't be burned by fire.

"It was very kind of you," Jon said through numb lips. Father… Jon's mind recoiled from the title. It was wrong. Ned Stark had been the only father that Jon had ever known but he was not. He was Jon's uncle. Lord Stark frowned at Jon, confusion in his eyes. "To take me with you, to raise me as your son."

Lord Stark's frown grew and he reached for Jon but Jon sank back against his chair. Father's hand dropped back to his side. "You're Lyanna's son, Jon. You're family, blood. Of course I brought you home."

Jon's hands were shaking in his lap. "It was good for you to take a child such as me into your home."

"A child such as…" Lord Stark cut himself off with a loud sigh. "Jon. You're a good boy, a gentle boy and I'm sorry for what my lies have cost you but I do not believe you are a child of rape."

Jon blinked the tears from his eyes and frowned up at Lord Stark who smiled at him. He looked sad. "But Aunt…Lady Lyanna, my m-mother." He found himself stumbling over the title, one he had always wanted to attach to a woman but now found sharp and bitter on his tongue. "She was taken by Prince R-Rhaegar. Raped and killed."

Lord Stark reached for Jon but aborted the movement. "I do not know the truth of the affair but neither does anyone else. I know Rhaegar was a good man, Jon. He was honest, he was just. He wasn’t like his father and he wasn't the monster that people say he was. I didn't know him well at all but I believe I see much of him in your character. He was solemn, he was quiet but people listened when he spoke. He wanted the best for the people and the people loved him. I believe Lyanna loved him. I do not know if he loved her but I do not believe he raped her."

"Did she run to him?" Jon flinched. He had almost forgotten that Lady Stark was still in the room. "A young girl, terrified of the yoke of marriage and a handsome, kind prince. Any girl would run to him."

Lord Stark sighed. "It seems that way. None of us know for sure. Only the dead and they have no voice." Lord Stark took Jon's still shaking hands. "I know this is a shock, Jon. I know it is a terrible burden to place upon you, both of you." A heavy hand landed on Robb's shoulder and Robb nodded seriously. "But know this for sure, Jon. Your mother loved you. She loved you deeply. Lyanna would never have suffered a child of rape. She would only bear a child of love. She held you to her breast and stroked your face like you were a treasure in her hands. She made me promise, swear to protect you, to hide you."

Lady Stark's breath whooshed out of her in a great gust. "Robert would have him killed."

Her husband nodded. His shoulders were tense and the lines on his face seemed deeper than ever. "Robert may be like a brother to me but something in him changed in the Red Keep when we won the war. I returned after finding Lyanna and found him on the throne and the bodies of two babies. They were two perfectly innocent children, their only crime was being Rhaegar's children. Even now, Robert hunts King Aerys's remaining children in their exile. I do not know if our friendship would spare you, Jon. I couldn't let him kill you. You are Lyanna's son just as much as Rhaegar's. It is not your fault you were born and it not your fault your parents were reckless and foolish. You are innocent of their crimes but Robert will not see that." He stared between the two boys, eyes more serious than either had ever seen them. "Do you understand what I am saying to you?"

They both nodded. "No one can know Jon is a Targareyn," Robb said into the tense silence. "He will be killed and it is treason to harbour a Targareyn."

Jon stared down at his hands, still engulfed by Lord Stark's large rough fingers. "I'm still just a bastard. I'm not important enough to start a war over."

Lord Stark raised his head. "You are a Stark, boy. Your father may have given you the fire in his veins but you are a Northern boy to the heart. You are one of us and bastard or not you have a claim to the Iron Throne. Targareyn loyalists are still abundant up and down the Seven Kingdoms and they may wish to put you on it."

Jon's eyes went wide with panic. "I don't want to be King! I just want to be your son."

Finally Lord Stark's eyes softened. "I know, boy. I do not know how your mother and father would have raised you had they lived but the fact of the matter is that they didn't. They both rest beneath the ground now and it is I who have raised you. You are my son in all the ways that matter and that will not cease just because you now know why I named you as my bastard." He raised his eyes to stare at his wife and son. "Nothing said within these walls must be repeated. Do you understand." All three of them nodded. They all understood how serious this matter was. Whispers of dead and mutilated children on the floor of the throne room and King Robert's infamous rage were heard through every kingdom of Westeros. Even friendship from boyhood wouldn't save Ned Stark's nephew from the executioner if it got out that he was Rhaegar's son. 

Jon stood from his seat on shaking legs. "May I be excused, Father?" his voice was wooden, the title sitting oddly on his tongue when less than an hour ago it had been perfectly natural.

Lord Stark examined his face carefully. Then he nodded and pressed a kiss to Jon's forehead. "Yes of course, boy. You may be excused."

Jon wasn't ashamed to acknowledge that he ran from the room. He did. He tore from Lord Stark's solar and out into the afternoon chill. After the quiet and the drama of the solar, the usual hustle and bustle of the people of Winterfell was a shock. It was bizarre to see the people going about their business as though Jon's world hadn't been knocked completely off its axis and turned inside out, upside down. He looked up at the grey sky, spilling light snow and half expected it to be green. Something around him had to be different. Surely there could be something to prove that what Lord Stark had said was true, that it was real. But everything was the same. Nothing had changed. 

Jon choked back tears and found himself stumbling down into the crypts. 

They were dark and cold and the torch clasped in Jon's hand flickered light through the shadows. Hardly anyone ever came down into the crypts. Even Father only came down rarely. Jon himself didn't particularly like the dark crypts filled with the stone faces of Starks long gone whose eyes stared down at Jon, the bastard in their midst, with distain. But he had found refuge here, in the dark. Refuge from Theon Greyjoy's cruel words, refuge from Lady Stark's hateful gaze. There were empty spaces in the crypts waiting for Starks to fill them where Jon liked to sit and watch the burning of the torch. 

Jon didn't go to the empty tombs. He stopped at the tomb of Lyanna Stark bearing her statue. He looked up into her stone face. It was hard to tell what she might have looked like living. Her face seemed pretty, certainly, but sad. There was the remains of a candle rooted in her upturned hand and the dried wax dripped from her palm like frozen tears. Her hair was covered and there was nothing in her face that Jon could claim. He'd never seen a portrait of Rhaegar Targaryen so he couldn't know if he bore either in his face. 

Jon lit a candle at the foot of Lyanna's statue and stared at the flame. Slowly, he reached out a hand and deliberately slid his fingers into the flame. He felt no pain, only a warm tickling sensation as the flame licked over his skin. It was strange to see, his skin amidst a flame that he knew should be blistering his flesh. Jon held his hand in the flame of the candle, just waiting for it to start burning, for the pain to begin. 

"Stop!" the echoing voice made Jon jump. He startled back with a cry, a flailing foot knocked over the candle and it extinguished instantly. "What are you doing, stupid child!"

Jon kept shuffling back on his hands as Lady Stark came closer to him. Her strides were long and powerful, her face stern and her hair rippling behind her like the flames of the torch she held. Jon's back hit the wall of the crypt and she crouched in front of him. He closed his eyes and turned away, braced for a slap but Lady Stark just seized his hand and turned it over. Her gloved fingers searched his hand for evidence of the fire and, finding none, she took hold of the other one. Finally accepting that there was no mark for her to see, Lady Stark dropped Jon's hands and stood up again.

"Perhaps you deserve an apology for the way I treated you all these years." Jon looked up at her. She wasn't looking at him, instead her stern frown was directed at Lyanna's effigy. "I won't apologise for despising my husband's bastard. You posed a threat to my own children and it didn't help that you look so Northern while they have the Tully look. Perhaps I was too cruel and perhaps you had no designs on my children's inheritance but I could not bear to look at you and so cruelty was easier." 

Jon stared at her. He was painfully aware of the dirt on his knees and hands and the tears on his cheeks. "What do I do now?" he asked the ground.

Lady Stark glanced at him and then went back to staring at Lyanna. "We go on like normal. We cannot say anything has changed because no one can know. So, now, you carry on as normal. You will train with Robb and you will go to your lessons and you will teach Bran how to shoot a bow. I will continue to ignore you as much as I am able and you will continue to avoid me at every turn."

Jon nodded. It made sense, callous as it seemed. Everything would return to the way it had always been. Jon would stay solemn and tread carefully around Lady Stark, Robb would keep living his happy life, mediating between mother and brother while Lord Stark danced between them all, keeping his wife happy and his sons alive but this time the difference in that normal life was that four of them, rather than one, would be holding a terrible secret in their hearts. 

Jon wondered if he could live with that secret. A secret so treasonous that it could surely write his death sentence in King's Landing and send it all the way to Winterfell. 

Lady Stark turned on her heel to face Jon still seated on the ground. Her face softened and it seemed almost kind. She beckoned for him to stand and he did. "This will not be easy for any of us, Jon. If you need to talk you may come to me but only if you are sincerely desperate." Jon blinked at her. He didn't know what shocked him more, the offer or the use of his name. She was staring at him with an expectant frown on her face.

"Thank you, my Lady," Jon murmured.

She gave him a barely there smile and strode out of the crypts. Jon scrambled to collect his torch and follow her. She paused just before the entrance before the light outside hit their faces. "You should go to bed. You have had a trying day full of terrible shocks and some rest would do you good. I'll have your dinner sent up to you." She looked down at him and opened her mouth as though to say something more. The furrow between her brows deepened as she closed her mouth and shook her head. She looked away from him and continued out of the crypts without a backwards look. 

Jon waited for several minutes, running the entire conversation over through his mind. It was like a waking dream or maybe it was a nightmare. Never had he felt so included but then also so distant from the Starks. He was no threat to Lady Stark's children but he was no longer his father's son. Jon's father was long dead. He had died in a river with a hammer in his chest and rubies and blood spilling through the water. Jon had always longed to know his mother was and now he did. Was the dream or the reality better? Which was more disappointing to him? The women he had imagined ranged from kind and beautiful to disdainful and abandoning. He didn't quite know what to make of Lyanna Stark.

He didn't see many people on his walk back to his room. The few he did see didn't speak to him nor he to them. when he did reach his room he closed the door and collapsed onto the bed. Lyanna Stark was known by all to have been a wild passionate girl but just that, a girl. Jon would never truly know what kind of mother she might have been to him had she lived. She may have been caring, she may have been distant. No matter the kind of mother Lyanna Stark may have been, Jon had never known a mother of any sort. 

Knowing the truth was both a comfort and a tragedy. Jon had his answers. He had the full and complete truth. But the dream of a mother who might be living and waiting for him was shattered. His mother was dead. His father was dead. All he had now was a lie to spread and a truth to hide. Jon changed for bed and took comfort in the knowledge that despite his blood and the treason he carried with his every breath, the Starks and the people of Winterfell would care for him and treat him as nothing more or less than one of their own. 

Jon closed his eyes and slowly dropped off to sleep. He dreamed of fires and dragons and a silver haired conqueror across a narrow sea. 

 

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> so...yeah, hope you liked it and any advice you've got would be wonderful!!


End file.
